At Irma Marsh Middle School, we provide our students with exposure to college and career readiness, community engagement, socialization, and 21st century skills. During the month of October, we were able to implement a school-wide strategy for taking notes called Cornell notes. 

Why Cornell notes? Cornell note taking stimulates critical thinking skills; help students remember what is said in class; a good set of notes can help students work on assignments and prepare for tests outside of the classroom; help students organize and process data and information; help students recall by getting them to process their notes.

Students were taught how to create Cornell notes in every first period class on Friday, October 23. Throughout the day, students continued practicing Cornell notes in various subject areas. This process continued for a solid week. The results were eye opening for both students and teachers. Here are what some of the teachers reported: 

"The first thing I noticed when reflecting back upon Friday's note-taking experience is that I do not give students enough time to reflect at the end of class. I was giving time for more examples and more practice at the expense of allowing students to collect their thoughts and tie together what they have learned. 

I also noticed students commenting on how fast classes were going by on Friday. I think the added note-taking lowered the amount of 'waiting' time in class and made students time feel more full...thereby going more quickly." (J. Loudermilk, 6th grade Math Teacher)

"I noticed that once the initial, 'What section does this go?' questions were answered, the students had much more organized set of notes. In the long run, they will become more efficient at discerning what items they should write down, and which ones they don't need to. We talked in a few of the classes about the impact this skill will have in the future, particularly in college, when there won't be someone telling them to write this down." (A. Brady, 7th grade math teacher)

"My students said that they could see a benefit to taking Cornell notes because it was more personalized and they could write notes down in their thought process.  I did not see much academic talk because they were focused on writing in their own words, but I did see how they compared their notes with their elbow partner.  As we continue to use Cornell notes I am seeing that the organization of their thoughts seem to be more logical on paper.  They still seem to be having a difficult time summarizing what they have in their notes.  I think that will just come with more practice." (S. Connor, 8th grade Science Teacher)

"On the first day of Cornell note taking, my students seemed to be a little bit confused. They pretty much just copied down exactly what they saw on the board, with only a few students really taking the concept and putting it into their own words. The second day (which was Monday, for me), my students did a little bit better and many were eager to ask me, “Can I just write it like this?” (Putting the concept into their own words). I was really excited to see my kids start writing down examples independently starting on the third day that I used the notes. My students also seemed to get a better grasp on the meaning of the academic words (like source, citations, guiding questions, etc.). I really believe that the notes have improved their comprehension of academic vocabulary." (R. George, 6th grade English Teacher)

After exposing students to a week of Cornell notes using paper, students were provided opportunities the next week to take their new skill and apply it to using a netbook to take Cornell notes (At Irma Marsh Middle School, all students have one to one netbooks.). As an instructional leader, it was great to see a school committed to one high yield strategy and students were talking about their learning across curriculums and grade levels using one common language.